Domestic terrorism

The benefits of hindsight

ON APRIL 7th 2009 a unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) charged with monitoring domestic, non-Islamic terrorism released a paper warning that the economic downturn and the election of the first black president “present unique drivers for right-wing radicalisation and recruitment.” Other causes included fears over illegal immigration and the possibility of more restrictive gun laws, and the challenges faced by returning military veterans. It compared the economic and political climate of 2009 to that of the early 1990s, “when right-wing extremism experienced a resurgence fuelled largely by an economic recession, criticism about the outsourcing of jobs and the perceived threat to U.S. power”; that period culminated in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh, a disgruntled veteran who found a home in America’s right-wing fringe movements.

The report, released just as the “tea-party” movement was heating up, came under withering criticism from the right. Commentators complained that it unfairly placed conservatives under suspicion. John Boehner, the House Speaker, said it cast veterans as “potential terrorists”. Daryl Johnson, who headed the unit responsible for that report, said that DHS promptly caved in to the pressure. Within months his unit, which had six-full time analysts and two supplemental staff—fewer by far than the team that monitored Islamic threats—was gutted, “out of malice and risk aversion”, Mr Johnson maintains, and out of fear of politically motivated budget cuts. Training and publications were cut too.

Nor is this imbalance limited to the DHS: since coming under Republican control in 2010, the House Homeland Security Committee has held five hearings on Muslim radicalisation, and none on right-wing threats. Yet America’s right-wing extremists commit a vastly greater number of murderous attacks (though leading to fewer deaths) than Muslims do. According to the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), published by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, between 1990 and 2010 right-wing extremists carried out 145 murderous attacks, resulting in 348 deaths, 168 of which resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing. During that same time period Muslim extremists committed around 25 attacks, which killed over 3,000 people; but 9/11 accounted for 2,977 of these.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), which monitors right-wing extremists, saw the number of such groups wane during the 2000s, before soaring back following the election of Barack Obama and the economic downturn, as Mr Johnson predicted: by the end of 2011 it counted 1,274 anti-government “Patriot” groups, far more than existed in the mid-1990s and up from a nadir of 131 just four years earlier.

Following the murder of six Sikhs at a gurdwara in Wisconsin by a white supremacist earlier this month, there have been calls to redress this balance. That would be welcome, but may well prove easier said than done. For one thing, law-enforcement agencies must take extreme care (far more than they have, historically) to distinguish between constitutionally-protected speech and actionable threats. For another, politicians will have to brave the blowback, distortions and pressure that, as Mr Johnson and his team can attest, will inevitably come from discussing the links between right-wing extremism and subjects such as gun laws, unemployment, military service and the election of Mr Obama. Bringing up such subjects will be difficult. Keeping silent would be worse.

Just take "right-wing" out of the titles of the reports. Sure, it feels good to paint all the politicians you don't like with the same brush as befits a psychotic murderer, but there should probably be a younger brother to Godwin's rule that kicks in here. If the Dept of Homeland Security or the SPLC really believes that these homegrown nuts are a growing threat, and recent events seem to bear this out, then do what you need to to get the studies done and the facts straight. If half of US politicians are falling over themselves to prove that they are more "right-wing" than the next guy, using that term to advertise a study of McVeigh and his ilk is going to provoke a negative response. And as it was pointed out in a blog here a while back, at a certain level of crazy, right and left don't really mean anything. So if you don't call them right-wing, you're not really losing anything; you just might get your study funded and the next xenophobic racist half-wit might get found out before anyone gets hurt.

Just take "right-wing" out of the titles of the reports. Sure, it feels good to paint all the politicians you don't like with the same brush as befits a psychotic murderer, but there should probably be a younger brother to Godwin's rule that kicks in here. If the Dept of Homeland Security or the SPLC really believes that these homegrown nuts are a growing threat, and recent events seem to bear this out, then do what you need to to get the studies done and the facts straight. If half of US politicians are falling over themselves to prove that they are more "right-wing" than the next guy, using that term to advertise a study of McVeigh and his ilk is going to provoke a negative response. And as it was pointed out in a blog here a while back, at a certain level of crazy, right and left don't really mean anything. So if you don't call them right-wing, you're not really losing anything; you just might get your study funded and the next xenophobic racist half-wit might get found out before anyone gets hurt.

If the Weather Underground were still with us, would we try to avoid offending liberals by refusing to call them "left-wing"? Home-grown terrorists these days, as noted in the article, are overwhelmingly righties.

(Actually, liberals and Democrats had no problem condemning leftist radicals back in the day. It says something about today's "movement" conservatives that they would rather take umbrage with labels than clean house of the racists and yahoos they've welcomed since Nixon's "southern strategy". Got to keep those useful idiots in the fold, right?)

"Remember, SOME on the left Think it is impossible to want a smaller goverment without being racist."

Maybe that's because the majority of Republicans (measured by volume of noise, perhaps not representative of the real majority), not to mention the tea partiers (not the same as Republicans), seems to have discovered that desire for smaller government all of a sudden once a black man was elected. And the hysterical refusal to get any law-making done even when the ideas behind a law were Republican to begin with only reinforces the impression that something more than a small-government fetish is at work.

Neither domestic nor foreign-born terrorists seem like much of a threat. The number of Americans they've killed, combined, over the course of two decades is about half of the number of Americans who die every day. Far more Americans kill themselves or others every year by driving like idiots.

Of course, if you decide you are going to target Muslims, it helps if you are at least knowledgable about them. Preferably enough to ralize that (epithets about "ragheads" notwithstanding) if you see someone in a turban and a beard, they are likely a Sikh, not a Muslim. But that level of awareness seems to be seriously lacking in the programs we put in place.

As for domestic terrorists, the evidence suggests that groups engaged in violence (which, as you correctly note, is how you distinguish the terrorists from the merely insane) are far more likely today to be a) white, and b) radical conservatives (in their own minds anyway; no offense to any real conservatives who are stuck with these unwanted bozos).

The US has a rich history of political extremism spawning violent activities. The Weathermen, Molly Maguires, anarcho-syndicalists are easy examples to recall from the past. I suspect, but can not prove, that the recent growth in right-wing extremism has its roots in the growing recognition of demographic trends. The US is not going to be a white majority nation much longer. More women than men are earning basic and advanced degrees. The unearned advantages enjoyed by white males (and I speak as one) are coming to an end. Those who are uncertain of their ability to compete on merit are going to be ripe for the marketing of scapegoats. If you can drape a flag around something that promises to provide you with benefits, the sale is easy.

at a certain level of crazy, right and left don't really mean anything.

Not to mention the fascinating phenomena that you are far, far more likely to find someone who has gone from far right to far left, or vis versa, than you are to find someone who has gone from moderately to extremely either one. There just seem to be some people who have a strong need to be fanatical about sommething. What they are fanatical about seems to be less important to them than the mere reality of being fanatical.

Far more Americans kill themselves or others every year by driving like idiots.

You don't have enough "far"s in that sentence. This article says that terrorists have killed something like 3400 Americans in the last 20 years. Over 800,000 people have died in motor vehicle accidents in that same span. Let's rationally assess risk.

And this in the comment section of a TE article about the government's predisposition to track "Muslim" terrorists over "Domestic" terrorists. Yet lately I've seen an awful lot of white faces on TV for shooting people. I think the article may have a basic point about a built in blind spot in our Law Enforcement culture.

Tell that to Powell, Shinseki and Sanchez, among many others. The simple fact of the matter is that the U.S. armed forces were the first and remain the best integrated of all our public institutions. You will find a much higher percentage of minorities in leadership positions in the military than you will in Congress.

Actually, Afghanistan is not an Arab country, so ten years ago we were not attacking an Arab country. I think you are confusing Muslim with Arab, when in fact there are a large number of non-Arab Muslim nations (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the various former Soviet states of central Asia) and a not insignificant number of non-Muslim Arabs.